So, Dr. Fisher, it’s your turn. You’re on the spot. I want to know what were your top five favorite episodes of the season and why.

I’m excited to hear your top five.

Awesome.

All right.

So without further ado, let’s dive into the top five most listened to episodes of this year. Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health and well being. I’m Amy Hudson, I own and operate three exercise coach studios. My co hosts are Brian Sagan, co founder and CEO of the exercise coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher and evidence based strength training. And now for today’s episode.

Thanks for joining us again here at the Strength Changes Everything podcast. Today we have a very special episode. As we wrap up 2025, in this episode, we are going to reveal the top five most downloaded, listened to, watched episodes of the year. What were your favorite episodes as listeners to this podcast and kind of why? What was revealed in those episodes that was so important and why we believe that maybe they were so popular? And then James and I will both reveal our top five favorite moments of the year as well with different episodes.

And so hopefully you will, um, if you missed any of these episodes that we discussed today, we’ll, we’ll give you the episode number so you can go back and listen to those if they were great and you miss those, we hope you do. As a reminder, you know, when I listen to podcasts, the topics that interest me the most are the ones that I’m personally the most interested and relate the most to me. And, you know, As a listener to this podcast, remember, just a reminder, you have the opportunity to visit us at strengthchangeseverything . com to submit the questions that you have for us so that the episodes that we put out answer the questions that you care about. So if you’ve never done so, I encourage you to visit strangechangeseverything .

com, click on the orange submit a question button at the top of the page, and share what’s on your mind so we can address those in future episodes. All right, so without further ado, let’s dive into the top five most listened to episodes of this year. All right, so James, are you ready to get these revealed?

I am ready and I’m excited to hear them as well.

Okay. So our first number one that we have here at The List is episode number five of season two, How to Lose Fat Without Muscle Loss, Science -Backed Solutions with Dr. Wayne Wescott.

So, Dr. Fisher, what was revealed in that episode and what do you think the highlights of that episode was? Yeah. So we’ll, Dr. Wayne Westcott is just a prolific academic and researcher and author, uh, as well as being just a wonderful friend. Um, and he talked about sort of, uh, the importance of retaining muscle, um, during weight, during periods of weight loss and the benefits of weight loss, um, as a product of strength training. So the increased energy metabolism for, you know, 36, 48 hours post -workout. But the fact that if we go through periods of weight loss without strength training, around 50 % of the weight we lose is typically muscle.

Whereas when we engage in strength training through weight loss, we typically lose much, much more fat and retain the muscle, which is obviously so important.

Mm -hmm. I mean fat loss is such a common question that we get. And so if we, you know, haven’t yet communicated this to you, please go back and listen to that episode about how important muscle is in your metabolism and how it can facilitate fat loss. Awesome. Second most popular episode is episode seven. Can you reverse osteoporosis?

Strength training for bone mineral density.

So what do we discuss in that one? Yeah, this is another good one and obviously the importance of bone mineral density as we age. I was having this conversation with my parents just this past weekend that, you know, beyond the age of our 40s, we’re in quite a catabolic state. We’re in a breaking down state and our bone density is decreasing and certainly in post -menopause in females, the hormonal changes as well, can also instigate a greater degree of bone loss and bone density loss leading to osteopenia and osteoporosis. And so we talked about what I would call safe skeletal loading, so non -impact skeletal loading using strength training to maintain or even increase bone mineral density.

So yeah, another really, really important topic. Right. Yes. And so if that resonates with you or if that’s an interesting topic for you or something that is of concern, do yourself a favor and learn about the connection between strength training and how it can help you with osteoporosis. Okay.

Number three most listened to is episode eight of season two, which is why strength training works for everyone. No exceptions. What was covered in that one? Okay, I think this is one of our first kind of research reviews and this was a research paper by, I believe it was Tyler Churchwood being titled something like there are no non -responders to resistance type exercise. And the whole point was this was a really big study where they’d looked at a number of older adults and they’d looked at a number of variables including muscle size. a whole muscle size, muscle fiber change, functional outcomes, strength outcomes.

And they found that every single participant in the study improved in at least one parameter that they were measuring. And so, of course, they had this title, there was no such thing as non -responders. And I think it’s really important because many people do respond well to strength training, their cardiovascular fitness improves, their muscle size might increase or their strength might increase. But even in the people that don’t see such obvious adaptations in those areas, there’s obviously a lot happening behind the scenes, both metabolically, both in the release of Myokines, which is another episode we did, and in their functional capacity and things like that.

So just their overall quality of life is improving. So yeah, another great episode. And yeah, like I said, the first research review, I think we did. That was such a good one. I really liked that one too, because You know, everybody cares about seeing results from their exercise. So sometimes what we can do is pick out one or two benefits that we’re really wanting to see the most, but ignore all these other ones that are happening.

And knowing that research shows that it’s impossible not to receive benefits from strength training and maybe understanding what’s possible to achieve beyond the one or two that I care about the most initially can really help stay motivated and you know, overcome the obstacle that you might have to artificially discouraging yourself if your favorite result didn’t happen right away.

Awesome.

I love that one too. Okay. The next one, episode number, the fourth episode here in this top five list is episode 10, strength training, the untold benefits of exercise for the brain. Okay, so again, another, you know, I was so excited that these were, you know, ranked so highly in downloads and views and so forth. When we talked about exercise for the brain and strength training for the brain, we talked about improved cognitive function, which can be things like processing speed and memory recall and overall sort of neuroplasticity. But we also touched on mood, self -efficacy, sort of how we feel about ourselves, a reduction in

anxiety. And, you know, we talked about, you know, that mental health is is such a big contemporary topic right now, but it’s attributable to sort of 15 % of deaths worldwide, poor mental health. So it’s a really huge issue to be addressed and knowing that resistance training can positively impact both our brain function. I think we talked about reduction in Alzheimer’s or progression of Alzheimer’s as well, because we talked about it as Alzheimer’s is often referred to as type 3 diabetes, so it’s often linked to high blood glucose. And we also would have mentioned that in children and adolescents, there’s sort of improved academic test scores. So there’s just an absolute wealth of information.

I’ve ruined anybody who’s going to go and listen to that podcast now.

But, but there’s a wealth of information showing the benefits of resistance training for the brain.

And we do get into much more detail than that. So if you haven’t listened to that, I would definitely encourage people to go back and listen to that podcast. For sure. That one is so exciting too. Honestly, I think there’s so many people out there who just don’t realize how many, the connection between our brain health and all of the areas you just mentioned and strength training. And so learning about that connection really is so, so exciting.

I love it.

And then the fifth. most listened to episode of this season was episode number one, where we kicked off the season, we introduced you as a new co -host, and we revealed the secret to feeling decades younger. So what were the highlights of that episode, Dr. Fisher? Yeah, I think that we really just, it was a very generic, uh, you know, podcast about kind of strength training as a longevity tool. Uh, why it’s so important for health performance, quality of life. Uh, we talked about things that we were kind of excited about for the podcast.

and for the show in the future and things like that.

So I’m not surprised it’s such a popular one. It was my introduction. So that’s where people first got a glimpse of me. Exactly.

So once again, the episodes were top five, episode number five, episode number seven, episode eight.

episode 10 and episode one. If you missed any of those and anything we just said piqued your interest, please go back and listen to those as well. All right.

So, Dr. Fisher, it’s your turn. You’re on the spot. I want to know what were your top five favorite episodes of the season and why? Okay. So, first of all, one of my favorite episodes was episode 11, which was the six essential elements of an effective strength training program with Matt Briskey. So Matt Broski again, a great colleague of the exercise coach, a wonderful academic.

Um, he’s, uh, recently announced his retirement from Princeton after 35 years there. Um, so just, it’s the wonderful, uh, practitioner in, in strength and conditioning and strength training. And there was a couple of things that he really said that resonated with me. He talked about his six essential elements. Um, a couple of them were sort of. a workout should be safe and it should be sustainable.

So we should be able to repeat it for the rest of our life. Um, but one of the things he said in that episode is he talked about strength training as an investment. So we often think about the time cost or the financial cost of exercise or strength training, but actually he talked about it as an investment that pays dividends later in life when we have that good health and that good function, a good cognitive function, as we just talked about. Um, you know, so, and I really loved that phrase of it being an investment.

Um, so, and what I love most is to have guests like that on and to continue learning. from these wonderful colleagues in the industry. So that’s one of my favorites. That’s my number one. That is such a good one too. And I always remember, you know, investments.

do come back to you or they’re supposed to. So it’s not just that you, you know, have a cost associated of your time or whatever.

You’re getting so much benefit from it. And I totally agree. It’s a great it’s a great episode. If you didn’t hear that one, go back and listen to Episode 11. So the next episode for me is Episode 13. And this was a research paper, a research review that we did.

And the research paper was titled Global Consensus. The science backed benefits of resistance training for healthy aging. sorry, that was the title of the podcast.

And it was a global consensus research paper by just some wonderful, I mean, a long list of wonderful academics talking about the benefits of exercise against multiple comorbidities and illness and medical conditions and so forth. And I actually have a the quote, my favorite quote from the whole paper, and it’s just a fantastic research paper, and I recall it being a nice podcast as a synopsis of the paper, but the quote that we used was, no medications currently enhance fitness, functional capacity, or alleviate frailty. Thus, physical exercise remains the most effective therapeutic intervention for disease prevention and management, as well as maintaining functional abilities. To me, that just sums up everything that we’re trying to achieve with the podcast, with the exercise coach, you know, really maintaining a quality of life and health. Yes, I remember my coaches really, really love that one as well. It’s just so exciting to see a global consensus on any topic.

It’s so rare. And so just that the, you know, the consensus, it’s irrefutable, the evidence itself. supports all of the benefits that we’re talking about on this podcast, I love it. All right, what was your number three? Okay, so my number three was another guest podcast, we’ve mentioned a few already, Wayne Westcott and Matt Briskey, and this was with Lauren Clance of Semple. And so she talked about strength training for women and she talked about hormones.

Um, and I, I thought this was a really wonderful podcast. I know that often, uh, exercise might resonate more and more with, with women, but often, uh, there’s still an anxiety around strength training or there’s a, you know, many females won’t engage in strength training because they’re a little bit anxious or they’re unsure or so forth. And obviously this is where the exercise coach does a wonderful job of really crossing that boundary of allowing that privacy and removing anything that could be intimidating. But one of the key things that she said was that. She talked about hormones and hormonal fluctuations through the month. And she sort of said, you know, not only should we not vary a strength training workout based on different phases of ovulation, but we probably shouldn’t vary a strength training workout between males and females.

And I just think that that just adds to the concept of simplicity of strength training. So many people disengage in strength training because of maybe perceived complexity or confusion over what they should do.

And there’s so much misinformation. And she really cut through all that to sort of say, you know, there’s no difference. We all just should be doing this.

And, you know, it was just a wonderful podcast.

I totally agree.

That one was a good one. And I know it’s very popular with female listeners, too, for sure. All right. What’s your number four? So my next podcast is episode 21. And that was a quiz that we did.

So this was, are you smarter than the average gym goer? So it’s resistance, resistance training myths busted. And again, this was also a research paper, but we turned it into a bit of a quiz for the listener. So if you didn’t listen to that one, definitely go back and check out episode 21 and hopefully have a bit of fun along the way of listening. And, you know, we asked the listeners questions and hopefully they played along and kind of gave their answer.

What was really fascinating is the research paper was geared around that many exercise professionals even don’t know the sort of the outcome of you know, multiple research studies.

And in fact, I have a quote from that and it says, it’s estimated that only 14 % of leading scientific evidence for prevention and treatment in sports science and medicine becomes standard practice after an average of 17 years. So this was a terrifying for me as an academic who’s published, you know, a number of research studies, but only 14 % of what I might write might become practice after 17 years. You know, it’s just a scary, but we, we, I had a lot of fun along the way. Anyway, hopefully other people did it too.

It was and it was super interactive and fun to see sort of where the population stood in terms of like what they think the answer is.

And if you listen to this, if you actually are getting smarter or not.

And so it was it was a lot of fun. I love that one, too. All right. Number five. My, my number five, so my fifth, my top five, and I could have had a top 10 or a top 20, you know, we did, we did do some, some wonderful, uh, podcasts that deliver some great information and had some fantastic guests. Um, but my number five is episode 47, which is a quite recent one.

And it’s the acute responses to strength training. Why every workout counts. Um, and in that episode, we talked through, I think maybe nine or 10, just, just acute immediate effect from a resistance training workout. And I loved it because we often think about sort of the chronic adaptations to a workout, you know, getting stronger in the long term, improving flexibility in the long term, building muscle or building bone mineral density over time. But actually what this, what this podcast kind of cut through to was, what are you going to see when you walk out the door?

after a workout. And we talked about improved mood and self -efficacy and cognitive function. We talked about exercise -induced hypoalgesia, so pain reduction. So anybody who’s got back pain or osteoarthritis sees a reduction in the way they feel pain. We talked about myokine release.

We talked about energy expenditure and muscle protein synthesis.

So there’s just a, you know, a wealth of things that happen you know, after every single workout. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s your first workout or whether you’ve been training for 20 years, everybody is, you know, reaping this benefit from this workout. And it just reminds me of the importance of every client and every person engaging in, in that next workout, you know, as we said in the title, why every workout counts. Right.

Yes, that one is just such a shot in the arm of motivation.

So any day that you as a listener are hesitating to Go engage in your workout, go listen to that episode because it really will be motivating.

I love that one too. Awesome. I’m excited to hear your top five, Naomi. Okay. Let me share some of my favorite moments from the season. And now these have to do, I think my top five, I would say if there’s a theme to them, it would be episodes that I know are beneficial to clients.

I own studios and I’m really close to the client experience and the coach experience because of that, right? And so the episodes that I picked have to do with really important topics that clients ask about a lot and that mean a lot to them. And so here are my top five in no particular order. So the first one I chose is episode 22. What happens when you stop strength training? So of course, you know, what’s important to me about this one is just the idea that strength training is, you know, there’s something called sarcopenia that’s happening behind the scenes to many of us where we’re losing muscle mass as we get older.

And so When we’re young, we’re building muscle, but as we age, we will lose that muscle, right? And it’s not just steady Eddie along the way, we’re losing it. And so strength training becomes an activity similar to rolling a boulder up a hill. You’re making progress, but if you stop, that boulder will roll back over you and there’s decline that will happen.

And so I think that’s just a powerful image for people to understand is that we don’t just coast along on a steady plane, but if we really understand the natural progression that happens as we get older, we really do understand how valuable strength training is as a habit, just like brushing your teeth, to stay strong and to feel good. If we don’t do that, the delta between where we could be and where we would be or where we are will go larger and larger over time.

And to me, that’s just such a powerful, powerful image. We want you to take strength training as a healthy habit. Yeah, yeah, wonderful podcast. Yeah, I really enjoyed that episode. And then the next one I picked is the strength training and myokines, unlocking exercises medicine. So that was episode 43, relatively recently.

So this was just such an exciting one for me. I think a lot of people out there have never heard of myokines.

It’s been a recent, you know, scientific sort of, not a discovery maybe, but they’ve put words to it and they’ve really crystallized kind of what is going on with this myokine release that happened. after every muscle contraction and strength training workout where these basically very simplified, magic chemical messengers are released into your body and they do so many important things that we want to happen. So there’s it’s just a deep dive on how these myokines positively impact our metabolism and our brain function and improve our muscle mass and kind of signal our body to do the things we want it to do. And so that is just such an exciting one to me, knowing that these myokines get released after every workout is pretty motivating. Yeah, absolutely.

And you’re absolutely right. It’s a really contemporary topic, you know, the last 20 years of research and, you know, really added that degree of clarity to this topic. So, yeah, I’m excited to see that one on the list. So what’s next? And then the next one I put on there was contralateral adaptation, strength training through injury and surgery. Again, I was pretty excited to learn in this one that, you know, You know, you’ll do a better job of explaining this, but basically, you know, if my right leg is injured and I have to rest it for a while, working my left leg will continue to support and do positive things to maintain my strength in my right leg.

I mean, wow, that is pretty amazing. I just, there’s, it’s not that you have to work every single individual muscle group itself in order to maintain the strength there or to have that muscle group experience the positive benefits from strength training other areas of the body.

And so what this conveys to me is, you know, even if there’s an area that you have to avoid, it doesn’t mean you should stop strength training completely. There are plenty of other beneficial ways you can strength train to maintain and help yourself to feel good still while you’re healing. Is that fair? Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. You’re exactly right.

Yeah. If you’ve injured one leg, train the other leg. If you’ve injured one arm, train the other arm.

If you can’t train the lower body, train the upper body.

You know, we, there’s always something that we can do that. And, and yeah, you’re absolutely right with non, non -local or contralateral adaptations in strength and muscle size, um, that can either, um, you know, prevent such a degree of loss or even, you know, maintain continued improvements in some research. So just, yeah. Fantastic topic. Yeah. And it’s kind of coupled with the stopping strength training one.

You know, we want clients to understand kind of what’s possible for them and what they can do and what, you know, with a guidance, the guidance of their trainer is appropriate because we want to see people successful, of course. OK, so the fourth one I chose is episode 31. It’s called Beyond the Gym, The Role of Protein in Personal and Strength Training Success. reason I chose this one is because protein is a question we get all the time. Many people come to us and they really just have never considered protein intake and why that’s important. They’ve never learned how to, you know, even count grams of protein or aren’t familiar with, you know, what foods contain protein and why that is crucial for them to maintain strength and muscle mass or improve that strength and muscle mass.

And so when they learn that and when they implement that, it’s super exciting because people oftentimes they move up to the next level of performance. And it was just the missing piece because they were so far under. And so I know this topic is important to people. And that episode provided a lot of guidance in terms of where we can get our protein from, how much protein we should aim for in a day, when we’re strength training, and why. So that was really, really helpful the way you broke most of that down in that episode, Dr. Fisher. Yeah, again, I’m really excited to see that one in your list.

And as I reflect on that, I think I’ve spent most of my life with people talking about the importance of carbohydrates for energy or the importance of reducing fat to stay healthy.

And there’s been so little talk of protein. And now I think the pendulum has really swung the other way that we talk about protein as, you know, the most important sort of nutritional component and everything else is potentially of secondary importance, whether it’s fat or carbohydrates or fiber or whatever it might be. Uh, but certainly for strength and muscle mass retention as we age, you know, protein is just really important. And I think we talked about the changing absorption rate through that podcast as well as we age. So yeah. right, which makes it all the more important to watch, right?

Exactly. So if you missed that one, for sure, go back and listen to that one as well. And then my last one in my list that I included was episode 19 called Stretch Your Muscles, Stretch Your Life, How Flexibility Impacts Strength, Pain, and Performance with Dr. Dapene. This one was so exciting, again, for me to learn about, you know, the connection between or really the synergistic interplay between improving our flexibility and releasing tension in our muscles and our ability to get stronger. They’re actually connected.

If we have tightness or tension or nodding in a muscle group, it will negatively impact our ability to strengthen that particular muscle group. And it’s important not only for feeling good, but for our progress overall. And so I know, again, this is an important goal for many clients to improve their flexibility, to reduce

and tightness that they feel because of their lifestyle or whatever factors are at play, and the fact that many of our exercise coach studios are now starting to offer coach -assisted stretch, which is so exciting as another component to help people feel their best and age in a way that is positive and transformative. The synergistic interplay between flexibility and mobility and caring for that with some intentional stretching was pretty eye -opening and really helpful information. Yeah. Yeah. Again, another guest, as you said, Dr. Dave Beam, you know, quite literally has written the book on stretching and flexibility and the benefits. So yeah, fantastic podcast.

So that was episode 19. So, um, Like I said, you know, if you’re listening today and you missed any of these episodes, hopefully this teaser will spark your interest to go back and listen to some of those. These are just some of the the most popular ones that you loved and then the ones that we loved and why. So hopefully you enjoyed that. We are super excited about what is to come as well into 2026. But again, thank you for listening to this podcast.

Thank you for downloading.

Thank you for watching. It really is. important to the success of this show. So I hope that you will also visit us at strengthchangeseverything . com to let us know what’s on your mind so we can address that for you in future episodes.

Dr. Fisher, thanks for being on this show with me today, too.

Do you have any other thoughts to leave listeners with?

Not at all, Amy. I think I think, you know, we’ve really covered everything with the podcast. As you said, we’re popular and then our our personal favorites. It makes me want to go back and listen to some of those old ones as well. So. All right.

Yeah, let’s do that. Right. Sounds good. Well, we will see you next week on the show. And until then, we hope you remember strength changes everything. Thanks for listening.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverything . com. Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode. Here’s to you and your best health.